Peanut Butter Blondies

I attend a wicked fun monthly event in my city called Brews & Board Games. Last month, the host wanted to raise money for the Baltimore Child Abuse Center through a raffle, silent auction, and bake sale. I made these rich peanut butter blondies for the occasion. This recipe makes 9-12 bars and is adapted from a recipe by Gal on a Mission. Oh, and if you make this recipe and like it, consider donating a few bucks to the Baltimore Child Abuse Center!

Strawberry Cream Cheese Croissants

This week, my coworker celebrated surviving breast cancer by hosting a "pink potluck" at work. We all wore pink and many of us brought in pink food. Choosing a recipe based on the food's color is actually not an easy thing to do, but I did it. This is an easy and delicious addition to any potluck or brunch.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

In lieu of a birthday cake this year, I baked my partner a strawberry rhubarb pie by request. I have never cooked with rhubarb before and was nervous because of the whole poisonous thing. Alas, it turned out deliciously and no one was poisoned! Success! This recipe makes one pie and was adapted from a great recipe from The Kitchn.

Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Sandwiches

These cookies are my absolute favorite. I have a good friend that makes them for every occasion (mostly because everyone that she knows practically forces her to do so), and I decided to try my hand at it for my Annual Great Cookie Exchange. This recipe makes 30 cookies and will blow your mind with how easy they are! Enjoy!

Best of 90s Food: Dunkaroos

This year, the Baltimore Sun's Mobbies is asking each blogger to blog about the thing that she would like to bring back from the 90s. Being that this is a food blog, I went straight for everyone's favorite snacks from the 90s. Earlier this week, I posted a recipe for Hot Pockets, and below is a recipe for the beloved Dunkaroos. Up next will be some DIY Lunchables and Pudding Pops. Enjoy!

Holiday Butter Cookies

For my office holiday party, I volunteered to make some cookies. This can feel like a lot of pressure, since everyone has a certain idea of what holiday cookies are, and can be really picky about it. Also, a quick disclosure: I haven't been to the grocery store in a few weeks, so my cupboards aren't overflowing with baking options. I decided to go with this recipe for butter cookies because it is a simple, easy-to-make recipe and it's super-likely that you have all of the ingredients in your house already. This recipe makes a baker's dozen and was adapted from this recipe. Enjoy!

Guest Post: Ange's Shortbread Cookies

My lovely friend, Melissa, wrote up this guest post that is perfect for the cold weather and the holiday season. Not only does the recipe sound good, but I have tasted it, so I can vouch for its buttery, flaky deliciousness. Remember, if you also want to guest post, please don't hesitate to contact me. Enjoy!
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I have always been a “cook” not a baker, when it comes to the time I spend in the kitchen. In fact, the idea of baking anything, especially cookies, would cause a reaction in me similar to when you say Brussels Sprouts to a four-year-old.  Ick.  It was so time-consuming and exact... ugh.  But suddenly something happened… maybe it was all of the delicious desserts seen in every magazine and tv show, maybe it was my Great Aunt’s years of scratch pies calling me home. Whatever it was, I finally started baking.  And the more I baked, the more I loved it.  And found out that baking is EASY. And the exacting nature of baking turned it into a challenge to try more and more difficult items and accomplish it and do it well.  The feeling of finishing a beautiful, complicated homemade cake could never compare to anything I put together on the stove for dinner. So, I guess I call myself a baker now and I love it! 

My friend Ange has been making this shortbread recipe for us for years. And every time she shows up with a plate of it the entire plate will be devoured in a matter of minutes, all of us picking the crumbs off the plate with our fingers when whole cookies are gone.  Shortbread is such a classic, simple, delicious taste and something I’ve never made before, so I thought I would give it a shot.  And, yep, Easy!  Turns out I’ve actually been making shortbread for a while now, I just called it crust and didn’t think about it being the same thing.

Baked Brown Sugar Peaches

What a dessert this is! It's so sweet and delicious that you probably won't realize that it's only about 100 calories per peach. That means you can eat like, a million of them. This is the perfect end-of-summer dessert and I highly suggest you go pick up the last of the fresh peaches at your farmers market immediately to make this! This recipe serves one (adjust equally to serve more) and was originally found at The Kitchen is My Playground.

Leftovers Club: Peanut Butter Bread

This month for Leftovers Club, I made peanut butter bread and it is magical! It tastes a little like a peanut butter cookie, but not as dessert-y (or, as my partner suggests, "It tastes like victory.") I suggest eating it warm and topped with butter, topped with jelly (your own PB&J!), topped with Nutella, topped with cinnamon apples, topped with vanilla ice cream or simply by itself. The possibilities! I got the recipe from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice and it makes one loaf. My Leftovers Club partner (Dan from Platter Talk) will be very happy!

 

Leftovers Club: Chocolate Stout Brownies

Beer & brownies are two of my favorite things, but I know I probably shouldn't eat an entire batch of brownies (which is what will inevitably happen). Thank goodness for The Leftovers Club! This month, I'm paired with Ruthy of Omeletta (seriously, go look at her blog; everything looks delicious!). I hope she enjoys the rest of these fluffy, chocolatey hint-of-beer treats. This recipe is loosely based off of an amazing one from the Craft Beer blog and makes one pan on brownies.

Leftovers Club: Chocolate Chip Potato Chip Blondies

Sweet & salty is just one of the best flavor combinations and this dessert does it especially well. I made these Chocolate Chip & Potato Chip Blondies for The Leftovers Club. If you remember, The Leftovers Club is the brainchild of Jennifer over at Savory Simple. It's an awesome group in which food bloggers share their leftover treats with one another. (Last month I made delicious spiced biscotti.) This recipe will make one pan of blondies and was adapted from Bake Your Day.

Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had some super-ripe bananas left over this week and yes, I love banana bread, but I really don't want to eat it every time my bananas get too ripe. (Seriously -- this is a recurring problem that probably could be fixed by my buying less bananas. Oh well.) Anyway, it hit me. Bananas. Peanut Butter. Chocolate. YES. A quick Google search pulled up a few recipes (like this one from How Sweet It is) & I was off to preheating my oven. These cookies were delicious, and next time I might sprinkle a bit of cinnamon in them, or something wild like that. This recipe makes a dozen large cookies & I hope you enjoy!

Leftovers Club: Coconut Lime Cake from Diethood

Update to my last post about The Leftovers Club! I sent out my vanilla biscotti and I received a delicious food package in return. (Can I please mention how much I love the concept of this food bloggers' club?) Katerina from Diethood (which she has self-titled 'not a diet-food food blog') sent me quite a few slices of an amazing Coconut Lime Cake.

The cake was dense and moist (even after being shipped across state lines), with a sweet, but not overpowering flavor. Because she used cream of coconut, I could definitely taste the coconut, but the texture of the coconut was absent (which is great for those folks that are weird about the texture of coconut). The lime flavor was a very light accent taste, but definitely complemented the coconut flavor. In summary: I'm in love with this cake.

Be sure to follow Katerina on Pinterest, like her on Facebook, follow her blog, and follow her on Twitter. She's lovely and I'm so glad I was paired with such a great blogger for The Leftovers Club's first month!



Sound like fun? Visit The Leftovers Club website for more information!

Homemade Hamantaschen

Happy Purim, everyone! I am technically not Jewish, but I absolutely love celebrating Jewish food holidays because, honestly, no other culture parties & eats even half as good! I luckily have a good friend, Rebecca, who teaches me a lot about the Jewish culture. Rebecca held a Hamantaschen Baking Party this weekend and it was just so much fun and so delicious. Below is the recipe that we used (modeled closely to this recipe she found online) and some photos of our adventure. One batch made about 20-30 cookies (this will vary slightly depending on the sizes in which you choose to cut them out). Oh, and if you're interested in learning the story behind Purim and the origin of Hamantaschen, click here!

Irish Cream Chocolate Fondue

My office hosted a Chocolate Potluck for Valentine's Day (how fun is that?!). I decided to bring chocolate fondue (mixed with Bailey's Irish Cream!) and get use out of one of the two fondue pots that I own. Making chocolate fondue isn't too difficult, and it allows for people to dip pretty much anything they want in it. You can tweak the recipe a ton of different ways (swirled with peanut butter, a white chocolate fondue, spicy chocolate, salted caramel, etc.) and you don't really have to have a fondue pot (although I highly recommend it!). This recipe makes one full pot of fondue.

Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins

I can't stop baking! Seriously. I think it's a problem. Because I still have homemade marmalade from a batch that a friend gave me, and given my baking problem, I decided to make a sweet, orange-y baked good. These were easy to throw together and you could make a lot of variations of it as well. Instead of chocolate chips, you could add cranberries, almonds, walnuts, whatever. This recipe makes about 15 cupcakes and is an adaptation of this original recipe.

Peanut Butter Blossoms

My mom used to always ask me to make these cookies for her when I was a kid, and since I saw her over the holidays, I just had to bake them. Of course, I used to make the prepackaged stuff when I was a kid, but I'd venture to say that the homemade version is even more delicious. This recipe makes two dozen extra-large cookies, or bunches of smaller ones (but I wouldn't know because I made super-big ones). Oh, and here's the original recipe, if you're interested.

Guest Post: Vegan Vanilla Almond Sandies

Please welcome Tiffany for my next guest post! She made these awesome vegan sandies for the holidays. Thanks, Tiffany, for the contribution! Remember, if you also want to guest post, please don't hesitate to contact me.
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I don’t know about you guys, but this time of year I get the baking-bug. I rarely bake any other time of year, but with all the gatherings and celebrations these days I feel like I’m a baking machine! If you haven’t caught the baking-bug, you should force yourself to make these anyways, I promise you won’t regret it.

Now, I’ve cooked many a vegan recipe but never have I attempted to BAKE a vegan recipe. So anyone who equates ‘vegan’ with ‘super-complicated-and-probably-includes-ingredients-I-can’t-find-or-afford’, don’t. These are simple, and depending on how well stocked your kitchen is, you may have all of these ingredients on hand anyways. Another plus for vegan baking? You can eat all the cookie dough you want without fear of salmonella poisoning!!

To be honest, this is the second time I’ve made these cookies in the past few weeks. The first time was successful, but I learned a few things. So now, you guys get the super deluxe version of the recipe…make sure to read the tips/notes before you begin! This makes about 20 cookies and here's the original recipe, in case you're wondering.

Circus Animal Cookie Truffles

I saw this recipe on Pinterest and was immediately interested because of my childhood love of these sugary cookies. I brought these to a friend's event & people really seemed to like them. This recipe makes 30 truffles.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Purses

These little blueberry purses are so easy and are so delicious. Like, party-in-my-mouth delicious. This is a great breakfast, brunch or dessert item to serve for just a couple people or an entire house. I'm sure that if you're not a huge fan of blueberries (gasp!) you can also swap out any fruit that you'd like. Keep in mind that this recipe equals four purses.